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Deadmau5, Derek Bailey, and the Laptop Instrument – Improvisation, Composition, and Liveness in Live Coding

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Deadmau5, Derek Bailey, and the Laptop Instrument – Improvisation, Composition, and Liveness in Live Coding Deadmau5, Derek Bailey, and the Laptop Instrument – Improvisation, Composition, and Liveness in Live Coding Adam Parkinson Renick Bell EAVI, Goldsmiths Tama Art University [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT Dance music superstar Deadmau5 and the improvising guitarist Derek Bailey represent, through their writing and prac- tice, two very different approaches to performing live. By critically considering the practice of live coding in relation to these divergent approaches, we discuss live coding with regards to where the liveness lies and how the laptop and soware are treated as a musical instrument. Each practice uses the laptop as a musical tool in a very different way. Live coding uses the laptop as an instrument in a manner that draws upon the techniques and strategies of free improvisation, in contrast to Deadmau5’s notion of laptop as playback device and the live performance as spectacle. We discuss Dead- mau5’s practice in relation to Francisco Lopez’s notion of the possibilities of electronic performance, and ideas about labour and liveness. 1. Introduction In this paper, we will explore the practice of live coding in relation to two very different but related practices: the performance practice of dance music “superstar” Deadmaus, and the “non-idiomatic” free improvisation discussed in particular by British guitarist Derek Bailey in his book Improvisation: its Nature and Practice in Music (Bailey 1993). For the former, the “live” show is a synaesthetic, perfectly coordinated, precisely pre-planned immersive audio-visual experience in which the performer simply presses “play”, whereas for the laer, the “live” show is continually composed in real-time. Sketching a continuum between these two practices provides a way of framing the practice of live coding. Doing so shows live coding as having more in common with ‘traditional’ instrumental practices which focus on an instrument and a performer on stage, engaged in real-time composition, than the live performer as a channel for a spectacle that is epitomised by the practice of Deadmau5. In particular, approaches to instrumentality found in free improvisation are present in live coding. Deadmau5 is of interest to us given his prominent place in contemporary, popular electronic music combined with his controversial stance on the role of the musician in live performance, while Bailey’s performance method and writing about free improvisation, although not electronic, match the declared intentions of many live coders and therefore pro- vide a background for understanding improvisation and its relationship to the “live” in live coding. We see Bailey as an authority on what a certain ‘pure’ idea of liveness and improvisation, which provides a valuable contrast with Dead- mau5’s idea of live performance. Deadmau5 realises different notions of live electronic music practices that combine an almost Wagnerian spectacle with a dismissal of many traditional notions of virtuosity and instrumentality that might be construed as unnecessary in electronic music. In a sense, Bailey and Deadmau5 strive for opposite aims: Deadmau5 wants complete predictability and repeatability, a play buon that always plays the same perfectly composed thing, whereas for Bailey each performance is a real-time composition seeking freedom from idiom and even the whole of mu- sical history, and his practice rallies against that hypothetical play buon. Neither of these aims is ever achievable, but they provide useful extremes within which to understand the practice of the live coding laptop musician. ese two views of a live performance form poles on a continuum of aitudes and ideologies of liveness, performance and musical instruments, upon which we can place and analyse live coding. Drawing on this, we suggest the follow- ing. Live coding situates the laptop as an instrument and locus of real-time composition bearing many similarities to ‘traditional’ instruments, and with the explorations of these instruments practised in relatively free improvisation. Live coding typically bears few similarities to the practices of Deadmau5, who treats the computer in a performance as a reproduction tool rather than a compositional one, despite possible aesthetic similarities (and frequently a relationship to dance music and dance music culture) that the two share. 2. Liveness By examining this aforementioned continuum, it can be seen that while a designation of “live” in either case indicates performer activity as an event is underway, the type of activity in which the performer engages – composition or facili- tation of spectacle – varies tremendously. e events we discuss can all said to be “live” yet in very different ways, and thus a worthwhile discussion of “liveness” can take place. Auslander has wrien an important contemporary text on liveness, which draws on Baudrillard, using the word “mediatized” in a fashion he describes as: loosely… to indicate that a particular cultural object is a product of the mass media or media technology. “Mediatized performance” is performance that is circulated on television, as audio or video recordings, and in other forms based on in technologies of reproduction. Baudrillard’s own definition is more expansive: “What is mediatized is not what comes off the daily press, out of the tube, or on the radio: it is what is reinterpreted by the sign form, articulated into models, and administered by the code”. (Auslander 2008, 5) is supports the view that rather than being a polar opposite to “mediatized” (as in Auslander (Auslander 2008; Auslander 2000; Auslander 2006)), designations of “live” are used to declare that a performer is active in some way in front of an audience, with the following consequences: 1. Liveness can be based on the prior perception of performer activity or decision-making. 2. Live- ness and mediatization can co-occur. Live laptop music involves the performance of the mediatized. Mediatization may in fact amplify perceptions of liveness. From this viewpoint, audiences call some- thing ‘live’ when they feel aware of performer decisions, typically but not always manifest in explicit physical activity in the moment of the performance… (Bown, Bell, and Parkinson 2014, 18) While older music technologies like violins might be construed as not being mediatised (even though they may be used to repeat and mediate a score), digital music technology is almost completely entangled with the technology of reproduction. Live coding is nearly always mediatised, explicitly so according to Baudrillard’s definition, in so far as the laptop and code are commonly conceived and used as technologies of seamless reproduction. Soware abstractions are precisely tools for the reproduction of certain behaviours in the computer. In the typical case, it uses the media of code, samples, synthesisers, and projection, yet its practitioners and audience have lile doubt about it being characterised as “live”. Considering liveness then from the view of activity, it remains to determine what type of activity is taking place. e liveness in live coding is fulfilled through a performer’s activity in generating the sound, rather than a performer’s presence as a figurehead in a spectacle. 3. Deadmau5 and Liveness in Contemporary Electronic Dance Music Deadmau5, despite the name, is neither dead nor a rodent, but a very successful DJ and producer, known for his large- scale immersive live shows, over which he presides wearing a huge mouse head. For many, Deadmau5 may be seen as the epitome of everything that is wrong with Electronic Dance Music, and the embodiment of a particularly North American strand of ‘stadium’ dance music that is far away from the evasive “underground” spirit that many value. However, whilst practitioners involved might claim there is a great stylistic and artistic gulf between Deadmau5 and live coding, there are also many similarities. Both an algorave live coding event and a Deadmau5 concert are events held at night, oen in clubs, where one of the performer’s main intentions will be to make an audience dance, through the production and manipulation of electronic sounds triggered or synthesised by a laptop (Collins and McLean 2014). Regardless of any value judgements about the aesthetics or practice of Deadmau5, we believe that he cannot be dismissed and in his practice and blog posts we find a very interesting idea about liveness in contemporary electronic music. On his tumblr (Zimmerman 2013), Deadmau5 famously declared “We all hit play”, going on to say, “its no secret. when it comes to “live” performance of EDM… that’s about the most it seems you can do anyway.” He explains the mechanics of his live set-up, informing us that he can do some ‘tweaking’, but structurally most of his set is predetermined, premixed and tied in with queues for lights and video: heres how it works…. Somewhere in that mess is a computer, running ableton live… and its spewing out premixed (to a degree) stems of my original producitons, and then a SMPTE feed to front of house (so tell the light / video systems) where im at in the performance… so that all the visuals line up nicely and all the light cues are on and stuff. Now, while thats all goin on… theres a good chunk of Midi data spiing out as well to a handful of synths and crap that are / were used in the actual produciton… which i can tweak live and whatnot… but doesnt give me alot of “lookit me im jimi hendrix check out this solo” stuff, because im constrained to work on a set timeline because of the SMPTE. Its a super redundant system, and more importantly its reliable as FUCK! […] so thats my “live” show. and thats as “live” as i can comfortably get it (for now anyway)¹ He trades off spontaneity for reliability: the best laid plans of Deadmau5 rarely go awry. In doing so, he diminishes the possibility to demonstrate his own personal virtuosity, but interestingly to us this seems to be of lile concern to him, and he even goes on to be actively dismissive of claims and displays of virtuosic live electronic performance; Im just so sick of hearing the “NO‼! IM NOT JUST DOING THIS, I HAVE 6 TABLES UP THERE AND I DO THIS THIS AND THIS” like… honestly.
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